Marti Cifuentes appointed new manager

[phoneticerror]

Just listened to When You’re Smiling. Nice to see Marti calling the result down to arrogance. Spot on.

[foxfanazer]

3 minutes ago, Fox92 said:

It's a bit of both but the manager does not escape criticism. His subs fvcked us up yesterday and let Wrexham back into the game. A better manager would be a getting a better tune out of some of these players.

Thats fair

[honeybradger]

1 hour ago, foxfanazer said:

I'd love to know how? I see defenders who can't defend and make at least 2 howlers a game, a non combative midfield who can't play simple passes and strikers who are laughably bad. We have a couple of decent wingers and that's it. Insincere to suggest this is a manager issue 

He's the one who keeps playing these players though.

 

Skipp is a write off and shouldn't see the pitch for us yet he was one of the first substitutions in.

 

Before this game he has played Ayew every minute or close to it. For some reason he clearly rates him which is a red flag.

 

He has stood by the Faes-Vestergaard pairing who make errors every game. Nelson meanwhile is out in the cold who was solid at this level at the end of last season.

 

Kristiansen is also a borderline write off yet we have Aluko who can come in instead.

 

I could accept the excuse that we have a terrible squad, which I completely agree with, if Cifuentes was taking the approach that these players are bad and need to be replaced but instead he has put his arm round their shoulder and enabled them.

[Dahnsouff]

4 minutes ago, honeybradger said:

He's the one who keeps playing these players though.

 

Skipp is a write off and shouldn't see the pitch for us yet he was one of the first substitutions in.

 

Before this game he has played Ayew every minute or close to it. For some reason he clearly rates him which is a red flag.

 

He has stood by the Faes-Vestergaard pairing who make errors every game. Nelson meanwhile is out in the cold who was solid at this level at the end of last season.

 

Kristiansen is also a borderline write off yet we have Aluko who can come in instead.

 

I could accept the excuse that we have a terrible squad, which I completely agree with, if Cifuentes was taking the approach that these players are bad and need to be replaced but instead he has put his arm round their shoulder and enabled them.

Maybe you are wrong? Maybe these players ARE the best we have? And playing youth would see us get worse at least in the short term? Would you honestly be ok to see us turn draws into losses?

 

Its ok to say "I think" but the flip side of that is the acceptance that you might be wrong

 

edit I might be wrong too 

Edited 1 October 2025 by Dahnsouff

[foxfanazer]

1 minute ago, honeybradger said:

He's the one who keeps playing these players though.

 

Skipp is a write off and shouldn't see the pitch for us yet he was one of the first substitutions in.

 

Before this game he has played Ayew every minute or close to it. For some reason he clearly rates him which is a red flag.

 

He has stood by the Faes-Vestergaard pairing who make errors every game. Nelson meanwhile is out in the cold who was solid at this level at the end of last season.

 

Kristiansen is also a borderline write off yet we have Aluko who can come in instead.

 

I could accept the excuse that we have a terrible squad, which I completely agree with, if Cifuentes was taking the approach that these players are bad and need to be replaced but instead he has put his arm round their shoulder and enabled them.

But so did the last manager, and the manager before that, and the manager before that. So there must be a reason behind it. These players that have constantly let us down are kept on at the club and still play the majority of games. Now it could be that every manager we get is completely useless and actually rates these losers, or they actually are the better options which in itself is a scary thought. 

 

I'm not defending him because in truth I don't really care that much anymore. He's just another target for the fans to offload at whilst ignoring the problems we have behind the scenes.

 

Sack him, don't sack him. It won't change a thing imho

[Pita]

We’ve got to admit we are just a very average championship side who are run by clowns 

[murphy]

1 minute ago, Pita said:

We’ve got to admit we are just a very average championship side who are run by clowns 

We should absolutely not admit that.  We should recognise that we have probably the best squad in this league and be demanding more from them.

 

If you don't believe that, I would ask you (or anyone) to name a club that has a better squad than we do.

[Cadno'r Cymoedd]

17 minutes ago, phoneticerror said:

Just listened to When You’re Smiling. Nice to see Marti calling the result down to arrogance. Spot on.

And his naff changes in the game? 

[Sol thewall Bamba]

5 minutes ago, Pita said:

We’ve got to admit we are just a very average championship side who are run by clowns 

Name 8 teams with better squads than us. Should be easy enough if we're "average" in this league.

[Bert]

4 minutes ago, Sol thewall Bamba said:

Name 8 teams with better squads than us. Should be easy enough if we're "average" in this league.

I’m struggling to name 2. 

[Sol thewall Bamba]

Just now, Bert said:

I’m struggling to name 2. 

Pita will help us out shortly I'm sure.

[davieG]

[The boy Linacre]

21 minutes ago, murphy said:

We should absolutely not admit that.  We should recognise that we have probably the best squad in this league and be demanding more from them.

 

If you don't believe that, I would ask you (or anyone) to name a club that has a better squad than we do.

Ipswich

[phoneticerror]

23 minutes ago, Cadno'r Cymoedd said:

And his naff changes in the game? 

Sorry, I forgot we had Messi and Haaland on the bench 😂

[The boy Linacre]

5 minutes ago, The boy Linacre said:

Ipswich

TBF we have 2 of the best midfielders in Winks & James.

We have an international defence, though 3 of them play at a level below Harborough Town FC (Vesty, Kristiansen (QED last night) & Wout (QED WBA A).

Probably the best winger in the League in Abdul

A strike force that at the moment are all trying manfully in their own way BUT are worse than shocking

Edited 1 October 2025 by The boy Linacre

[Dahnsouff]

24 minutes ago, murphy said:

We should absolutely not admit that.  We should recognise that we have probably the best squad in this league and be demanding more from them.

 

If you don't believe that, I would ask you (or anyone) to name a club that has a better squad than we do.

Depends what you mean, if you are talking players in isolation, then likely we are up there in the top 2-3 squads, but if you mean as a club, we are expectedly some distance away due to our suck ass attitude and weak mentality.

 

Ipswich has a decent squad, coupled with a long term good manager and ethos, so they are really doing poorly at the moment.

[CrazyKopCorner]

2 hours ago, Tommy Fresh said:

The starting eleven was fine and it was looking very comfortable, the subs killed us

Was it really? We had one shot on target all night. 

 

That starting line up was ****ing abysmal. Continued complete and utter incompetent players being selected. 

 

The whole of that back 5 can do one and playing Daka is beyond contempt. 

[TeamRocket]

Just shows more and more we need someone who would score goals, honestly feel like we should have tried to keep hold of  Vardy even if we wanted to go or really went out and got a goal score last season when vardy said he was done here.

[Dahnsouff]

4 minutes ago, CrazyKopCorner said:

Was it really? We had one shot on target all night. 

 

That starting line up was ****ing abysmal. Continued complete and utter incompetent players being selected. 

 

The whole of that back 5 can do one and playing Daka is beyond contempt. 

Give us your plan and please exclude the letters y, o, u, t and h

[Danizen]

32 minutes ago, murphy said:

We should absolutely not admit that.  We should recognise that we have probably the best squad in this league and be demanding more from them.

 

If you don't believe that, I would ask you (or anyone) to name a club that has a better squad than we do.

Our squad is full of big names and probably better players but most of them are individuals. Leftovers that no one else wanted.

 

Most of the teams around us have been purposefully put together to compete at this Level. 

 

How many of these players would Pearson have given the time of day to, 11/12 years ago? This is not a Championship winning squad. This is the Man United of the league.

[Tiny earl]

17 minutes ago, davieG said:

What an inspirational halftime speech, I’m guessing the players were looking at each other thinking ,”he’s right you know”!

I’m beginning to think he’s too good for us.

[Stadt]

Take the Wednesday game out and we have 25 shots on target in 8 games.

 

Joint worst xG/shot in the league, completely crap at making chances. That isn't a player quality issue, Hull aren't struggling to make chances and they have much worse players.

[Kitchandro]

1 hour ago, foxfanazer said:

We're 5th, I genuinely don't believe we're below where we should be. Just gonna be one of those agree to disagree scenarios as I think we rate the squad very differently 

 

As I've said though, it's not through an affinity to Marti particularly but I just think we're constantly putting the failings of the club on the manager instead of addressing the real issues 

But our failings as a club are just as much about the boring style of football as they are about the crap players.

 

People are bored. Even when we were promoted two seasons ago no one remembers it fondly. Even though purely on finishing positions we did well under Rodgers, and even Puel, no one remembers it fondly. And it wasn’t about the players then because we had an excellent squad.

 

This shite football has been going on for nearly 10 years with only short bursts of the promise of entertainment. That’s why managers like Marti will get little leeway. 
 

I personally think we are about (or slightly above) where I would have thought we’d be in this league, though I think we will fall away below the play-offs. Yes, our squad is average for this league when you take attitude into account. But we’ve got a few very exciting attacking players for this division - we shouldn’t be having 1 shot on target per game. You don’t need great players all over the pitch to play exciting attacking football. Even Holloway managed that at this level with Blackpool and DJ Campbell up front.

 

 

[dmayne7]

17 minutes ago, CrazyKopCorner said:

Was it really? We had one shot on target all night. 

 

That starting line up was ****ing abysmal. Continued complete and utter incompetent players being selected. 

 

The whole of that back 5 can do one and playing Daka is beyond contempt. 

If Nelson is injured as rumoured, then he didn't have loads of choice with the back 5 did he? Everyone hates VK, Okoli can't pass and Ricardo is made of glass so sensible to bring in Hamza. I probably collectively dislike Faes, JV and Hamza as much as anyone but it was fairly logical why at least 3 of those 4 defenders were chosen.

[Cadno'r Cymoedd]

32 minutes ago, phoneticerror said:

Sorry, I forgot we had Messi and Haaland on the bench 😂

We didn't of course, so who knows what the future might bring. 😂 But the changes he made were very poor and lost us cohesion and momentum.